The Idiots Guide To Experiential Marketing

In my research endeavors, practical applications and commercial activities, I have come across many forms of marketing which all have their individual jargon, lingo and paradigms. However, nothing intrigues me more than two of the following:

1) Engagement Marketing

2) Experiential Marketing

Now, Engagement Marketing is something I will discuss in detail in an upcoming post, but the focus for this article will be Experiential Marketing.

Recently, I purchased an iPad, and it is ergonomically and economically the best decision I have ever made! I can integrate all my feeds into an intelligent application known as FeedlerRSS which unifies your Google Reader account and all of your favourite feeds in one simple interface which is useful when on the train or travelling in the car.

Nevertherless, back to the topic! Experiential Marketing is something that is not comprehensively defined so I am going to have a shot at it!.

Firstly, it is marketing that focuses on creating experiences with audiences. It evolves from face to face, digital, virtual and social forms of marketing to provide a unique 360-degree perspective on the whole engagement process between consumers and their brands. Whilst it also transgresses into the Engagement Marketing spectrum, Experiential Marketing holds the distinction of creating a fully immersive brand experience by interacting with consumers and bringing the brand 'alive'. Sending an SMS message to a mobile phone is not in essence experiential marketing. What would be experiential marketing would be sending an SMS to accompany a campaign that the brand is undertaking and delivering a unique value-laden experience with that brand through the engagement this relationship yields.

Secondly, Experiential Marketing has philosophical, neurobiological, psychological and sociological theories of the consumer at heart of its campaigns. It invokes a change of mindset by creating a sense and feel of the brand in a consistent, holistic and enriching manner. Its also, like Engagement Marketing, an invitation to be involved with the brand's product or service development architecture. Experiential Marketing also also uses an approach in which logical thought, emotional response and other thought processes are used to provoke an emotional response from the consumer about the goods and services offered to them.

Now, with this foundation in place, its often a lingering conjecture that Experiential Marketing fails at gaining audience 'attention' in the 'service economy' due to the proliferation of distractions such as pop-ups, banners, SPAM email and junk mail. To address these challenges, I propose (with special thanks to Ian McGonniga) the following framework for being succession in the sphere of Experiential Marketing.


- Create Indelible Experiences: This means driving sensory responses with your audience to naturally capture and hold their attention.

- Drive And Engage In The Conversation: Too often, I have seen marketers take a broadcast approach to their messages by creating environments of singularity. The idea here is to ask questions to tell the story, to create that indelible experience mentioned above and listening, engaging and fostering conversation with your audience to build on their experience levels.

- Create Social Destinations: The World Wide Web 2.0 provides brands with a plethora of technologies and platforms to create these destinations. For example, blogs, facebook and twitter feeds coupled with YouTube channels and Flikr are invaluable tools to create whats known as architectures of participation for audiences and consumers. Whilst building these is challenging, the real value to your enterprise will come from maintaining content and conversation on these sites through an experiential focus.

- Facilitate The Backchannel: This is of particular importance as research shows that audiences are most likely to engage in social media with the intention to facilitate and influence the conversation. Its important to be omnipresent and in control of your brand perception by mitigating the negative gossips and positive gossips in any social group.

- Create A Mobile Playground: I am reading a book called Mobile as the 7th Mass Media and its undoubtable that the most persuasive distraction brands compete with during a face to face event is the mobile device. By unifying all communication channels out there, including the mobile phone, its possible to regain audience 'attention'. Its also important to leverage developments in the mashable mobile applications space to keep audiences and consumers interested and immersed in your brands message.

- Immerse Audiences In Virtual Experiences: Second Life is an exemplar of the virtual world and using virtual experiences such as brand simulations are invaluable when it comes to adding the value into your experiential marketing campag

- Always Look To The Future: Emerging technologies will always surface thorough technological development and its important to keep up with the trends.

Therefore, this is a beginners guide to leveraging the tools of experiential marketing. Perhaps after writing this, I realise what Apple was thinking when it developed the iPad and making its platform available to so many developers.